


Solid Ground

by SaltAndBurn (AlyssiaInWonderland)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: ADHD, ADHD Character, Character Study, Gen, How Do I Tag, Introspective Dean Winchester, Kinda, Stream of Consciousness, also John isnt in this much he is just very briefly mentioned, i have no clue how to tag this so imma stop now, me rambling about Dean and how he thinks basically, shameless projection of my own issues onto Dean
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-24
Updated: 2018-08-24
Packaged: 2019-07-01 21:44:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15782703
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlyssiaInWonderland/pseuds/SaltAndBurn
Summary: Dean knows something is wrong with him. He’s so easily scattered. It’s like his mind knows where he should be, but it’s accuracy is whacked.***A character study where I explore how I think Dean thinks, and how he exhibits many typical characteristics of ADHD. Hopefully it's fun or interesting to read!





	Solid Ground

Dean knows something is wrong with him. He’s so easily scattered. It’s like his mind knows where he should be, but it’s accuracy is whacked. He resents the people who console him with a trite, cheerful “If it’s important then you’ll remember it!”. They have never been him. They don’t understand that his memory feels like sand he’s trying to hold in his hand, that even vital thoughts trickle out like any other grain. He thinks that maybe for other people, the important thoughts are somehow bigger. Maybe he’s supposed to be able to tell which grain is which. Or maybe his hands are too clumsy, fingers indelicate and incapable of filtering his mind right.

He doesn’t forget everything. Some tasks, some facts, stick with him like they are part of him. Fixing his Baby is easy, muscle memory and intuition melded with something like love. Hunting, too – drilled into him until it’s pure instinct. He’s always felt more comfortable with the physical world. His body rarely betrays him as his mind does. Once he’s learned a move, he can repeat it, feel how right it is. He remembers how to kill creatures because his body knows the methods intimately. If he thinks too hard about it, the solidity of his knowledge shatters, his mind fumbles and his body slips with it. Hunting is dangerous. His father taught him that he can’t afford mistakes. So he tries not to think.

Time warps around him like he’s Riff-Raff, or Frank - he’s not sure which is a more disturbing concept. Stripping down his weaponry devours time. He’s spent hours and hours oiling and polishing, even talks or plans out strategies at the same time. The task is a soothing backdrop; it lets his thoughts play out, but always brings them back in touch with him, as surely as his hands smooth over the metal. Trawling footage, by contrast, stretches every second until it feels like it will break him. Being still is agonising. The minutes pass as tiny infinities. He hates feeling directionless, and so he finds it in his physicality. He paces, he taps, he runs errands, and he never lets himself face the eternity in each tick of time, because he’s afraid that if he does then the world will freeze entirely, and he will be stranded, alone.

He wishes he was better than he is. He wants it desperately, without knowing exactly what he is striving for. He has no idea what it would be like to not wrestle with himself every day. Doesn’t know what might help or hinder him. All he knows is that he is worse. Always. Worse at concentrating, at math, at managing himself. He thinks either he is just weak, or his brain is somehow different, and it doesn’t matter which because the outcome is the same.

He even forgets to eat. It’s a mixed blessing; humiliating that he forgets such a basic need, but it means less money to scrounge up. He likes food, when he remembers it. Which is frequently only when it’s right in front of him. It’s unhealthy, he knows. Skipping meals and making up the calories easily in how his desperate stomach craves fast satiation. Somehow, though, he’s formed a habit. If his body is still functional, if he can still hunt, then he doesn’t much care to try harder. He isn’t sure if it would even help if he did. Not trying is better than knowing he’s failed. 

His greatest fear is that he isn’t his only victim. He knows he is careless, that he misses people’s intent. He has to experience to understand. This isn’t always a bad thing; it means almost anything he can relate to movement or himself comes naturally. But when he has to consider anything outside his realm of direct experience, he feels like a fish drowning in air. He wants to help; he emulates patterns cast at him when he has felt similarly. It never works right. He doesn’t have models, reference points to hold to. Emotion is too turbulent, people too complicated. He clings to the rules his father taught him. It’s all he has. 

Music helps. It’s reliable, a way to connect with people. One that doesn’t rely on the inner world of thought and emotion which is so tangled and bewildering. If he can’t share feelings, he can share the beat. It’s grounding in a similar way to cleaning his weapons, like how he feels when he fixes up Baby. A baseline, thrumming through him, consistent and comforting. He knows every note. If someone else knows it too, then he thinks that means at least he knows the part of them that knows the music. He dances with it, sometimes sings. The music lets others join him, synchronises them on the same wavelengths of sound. It’s more than he ever expected; the unity in it something he feels like he can actually understand.

He always needs something to anchor him, remind him that he isn’t just experiencing life but is actually living it. He wraps himself in sensations. Digs his teeth into his lips and rasps his tongue over the pain. He feels the calm, the way his mind loosens and narrows its scope when he has alcohol. The burn of it in his throat feels like he’s alive. Scalding coffee brings him to himself, lets him track his rapid thoughts by speeding himself up enough to catch them. When he doesn’t have that, he feels lost. Overwhelmed by the way the world spins. So fast he can’t hope to grasp it, no matter how much he wants to. 

Everything and nothing is real to him, so he has to start small. Touch, movement, the little ways he can change the world just by existing. It ripples out, as he finds himself in others’ eyes. How by following paths he has seen walked, he can make outcomes less filled with uncertainty. Can make sense of the chaos. Flirting creates responses he knows how to handle; so does due deference to other hunters, to his elders. He’s not sure how much is him and how much is him playing his part. He plays it anyway. 

Sometimes he tries to take stock of his life. When he does, he counts it in creatures killed, in people saved. He goes over the numbers, until they feel true. Until he can recognise that he has done those things, that he’s enacted something permanent and good. He counts them until he remembers them all. Reality flows like water, and his body and his actions are all that keep him from drifting away.

Dean knows something is wrong with him. He sees the sunlight glinting off Baby’s wheels, he feels the metal of his weapons. He grounds himself in the present, with pain and pleasure. His mind forgets and his body remembers. He breathes, he fights, he struggles.

And once or twice, when the stars shine softly and he’s sitting silently with Sam on the hood of their Impala, he is able to be still. He lets himself stop caring that he’s broken.

He lives for those moments; those snapshots of peace. His solid ground.

**Author's Note:**

> Hey y'all! This is my first Spn fic and I'm currently at the beginning of Season 9, so if possible avoid spoilers! I was going to wait until I am caught up to post things but I just really really wanted to XD
> 
> Comments and kudos feed my dark soul!
> 
> Hope y'all enjoy this. It's literally just me rambling about Dean, so yeah!


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